Algarve MP José Carlos Barros from the Social Democrats challenged the Minister of Planning and Infrastructure, Pedro Marques, during a State Budget 2017 session to state once-and-for-all whether the Government definitively has dropped the planned railway link to Faro Airport.
The minister's response was of his usually vague variety, stating that the work that the Government is committed to carry out in this area is included in the Ferrovia 2020 Plan and that he will see if this and other proposed works will be carried out in this investment cycle.
José Carlos Barros rightly concluded that "the work will not be carried out until the end of this legislature" since the Ferrovia 2020 plan, prepared by the current Socialist government does not even include the rail link to Faro Airport.
The planned link was in the previous government’s wide-ranging Strategic Plan for Transport and Infrastructure (PETI 3+), which was approved by Council of Ministers in August 2015, but has been dropped completely from the socialist’s watered down investment agenda.
"The sine die (without assigning a day for a further meeting or hearing) postponement of the construction of this railway infrastructure, a key element in the reorganisation and implementation of a green mobility strategy for the Algarve, does not warrant a single word of indignation,” according to the deeply disappointed Social Democrat MP who blames the cabal formed by the Socialist Party, the Left Bloc, the Communist Party and the Greens for supporting the removal of the rail link from current planning objectives.
